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THE 'Milan of the Clarence' - or Grafton as it is more commonly known - is home to the Valley's latest budding supermodel.

Lucinda Bell, 16, has returned home after travelling to Melbourne to participate in the Walk with DJs modelling competition as part of David Jones' The Fashion Project.

The Walk with DJs competition started as a social media campaign with budding models asked to upload photos to social media platform Instagram.

The competition drew thousands of entries from around the nation but only the top 100 applicants were invited to Melbourne where they vied for the opportunity to be a part of the department store's runway show at the Melbourne Fashion Festival.

Lucinda said she was excited to represent Grafton in the competition and it was a dream making to the top 100 rounds in Melbourne.

"I think there was over 1700 applications altogether," she said.

"They chose a top 100 out of all applicants to go to Melbourne, so I was so lucky I was chosen."

Once in Melbourne, the entrants were asked to compete in a model-off, a concept that wouldn't be out of place on reality television shows such as Australia's Next Top Model.

"Basically they just had like four judges that were largely associated with the company and you had to walk for them in like a pseudo model catwalk shoot," Lucinda said.

"We walked in groups of three and the judges picked their favourite models from each group who moved on through to the next round.

"I made it to the third or fourth round, which was down to the top 20 in the competition, before I was eliminated from the running."

Lucinda said the competition was something that she discovered by chance and had decided to enter as fun.

As for a career in modelling, she is too focused on school to be concerned with the world's catwalks.

"I think I was one of the youngest there," she said.

"School is more important right now. I'm not going to go off and model everywhere just yet.

"It started with my fashion blog which really got me into the industry and I have been creatively inspired through that.

"I saw the opportunity and thought it would be a good idea to get involved in the industry early.

"It was just a random thing but it was a lot of fun and I would definitely do it again if I could."